Show Reviews

This is night two of a spring three-night Sunday, Monday, Tuesday stand at Nectar's. While the band had just lit up Nectar's with the first full Gamehendge ever performed, on this night, the band showcased their more traditional material. Nearly every song played in this show is strict-to-form, with very little deviation from traditional structure. As this show doesn't even have an early-stage jamming song (Hood, YEM, Mike's), this show is full of 6 minute numbers.

A slow and lackluster Suzy starts off the show, followed by a Golgi/McGrupp pairing that features two songs with very similar chord progressions. Listen carefully and you'll find the bridge of Golgi and the first major chord progression in McGrupp are eerily similar. This is the only time when you'll be able to hear these two songs back to back (as Dean Budnick has noticed). While I am normally a jaded McGrupp fanboy, this particular Page solo feels rushed and the ending seems premature. There are also numerous flubs by Trey in the ascending note-section. A forgettable Sneakin Sally and Divided Sky are followed by the return of Boogie On, a song that the band hadn't played for nearly a year (4/29/87). Timber is short here and Lizards, which the band had really perfected by this time, closed the set.

The Fire to open the second set is dedicated to Alex (see 2/7/88) and Scotty Roberts, bartenders at Nectar's, as well as Magoo and Mike from the Ninja Custodians (aka "the hottest band in Burlington"). This version is great in that its perhaps the only time that Trey says the lyrics "Move over Rover...and let Trey take over", although he does it with tongue in cheek. A nice Fire, followed by an extremely forgettable short AC/DC Bag.

What follows next is perhaps the most interesting part of the show. After several months of playing the full Fluffhead, the band starts The Chase! Instead of playing the full version, which the band seems to forget, they abandon the Chase and move straight into Possum. This is very similar to how they used to play Lushington>Possum, but without any meat at all. Dinner and Movie is played here at the request of an audience member who screams "Let's go out to dinner and see a movie". A short Dinner here, but nicely played. Despite the previous week's full Gamehendge, there is no mention of the Gamehendge story in this Forbin's>Mockingbird.

It seems odd that the band would play Forbin's with a full narration, only to shelve the narration later, which may be an indication that we don't quite know the correct dates for these shows (or at least which setlists go to which shows). In any event, the tapes cut out after this song.

As I review shows, I tend to assess the overall quality of the songs, the relative rarity of the setlist, and how well the show compares to the rest of the Phish arsenal of shows. This show features short standard versions of composed songs, with only a brief obscure song (the Chase) played for about 45 seconds. Simply put, this show doesn't hold up in the historical context of the band, and is worth a complete pass...unless you happen to be Alex the waitress.

Not nearly as good of a show as the rest of March up to this point. It's a pretty boring show overall compared to most. All the songs are as standard as it gets for '88. Suzy is slow, Divided Sky has missing sections, you get the deal. Lizards is well played as is also typical of '88. Boogie On is cool to hear, but also below average version.

Set II offers little excitment, although Colonel > Mockingbird will always give a show extra points for me.

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